In this October 16, 2015 photo, Myanmar’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, on the stage, delivers a speech as supporters of her National League for Democracy party bash (NLD) wave party bash flags & applaud throughout a marketing crusade rally in Taungok, Western Rakhine state, Myanmar.
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Conditions for the majority of Myanmar citizens living in the countryside are little changed.
With its campaign for “change” the NLD has tried to harness the deep public resentment among civilians against the former military rulers, who enriched themselves while driving the country into poverty and isolation. Despite the NLD “purging Muslims”, the paranoid nationalist group often dubs Suu Kyi’s party the “party of Islamists”. “It’s really a historic moment”, said Lee.
In the run-up to the poll, Suu Kyi has pledged to speed up democratic reforms, scrutinise investment to limit environmental impact and amend a junta-drafted constitution that bars her from becoming president. Further, the military drafted constitution guarantees that unelected military representatives will take up 25 percent of the seats in the Hluttaw and have a veto over constitutional change.
“While NLD voters are told to vote for the party, not the candidate, the USDP is banking on voters’ familiarity with township powerbrokers”, Mr Ferrelly writes in New Mandala. Myanmar is considered a freer and more democratic country today.
Suu Kyi was not handed power in 1990 despite winning by a landslide, a move that is seen as a repercussion of the 1988 crackdown on an uprising, that eventually brought on economic difficulties and forced millions of people to leave and seek better lives overseas.
Visibly confident heading into the elections, Suu Kyi brushed off the constitutional hurdle in a recent interview, saying she has a plan to lead the country from behind the scenes. He has become Ms Suu Kyi’s closest and most intriguing ally outside her party.
The early ballot comes after overseas nationals cast advance votes earlier this month ahead of the November 8 polls trumpeted as Myanmar’s freest and fairest in decades.
Suu Kyi also faces dissent from a few in the pro-democracy camp over her transition from democracy icon to politician. Despite her Nobel, she says, she is a politician and never sought to be a human rights campaigner. But he’s less certain what would happen to the party without Suu Kyi.
USDP campaign trucks are bedecked with pictures of President Thein Sein, a former junta general who has led the government since 2011 and has not ruled out another tilt at the top job.
Sunday’s rally is expected to be the last major NLD gathering as electioneering enters its final week, with campaigning ceasing at dawn on Friday.
Buddhist extremists have also been accused of attempting to sway voters using religion, while many Muslim candidates and voters have faced what appears to be a systematic attempt to exclude them from the poll.
NLD officials say it doesn’t matter who is chosen. More than 6,000 candidates from around 90 political parties are competing for 330 lower house seats, 168 upper house seats and 644 state and regional parliamentary seats.
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“Everything is ready”, said NLD monitor and writer U Thein Htay, adding that the elections marked “the hope of every single person in the country”.
